


Crumbled Walls

by mellowmello



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Desperate Leia, Force Use, Implied Sexual Content, Implied/Referenced Torture, M/M, Memories, Posterboy Hux, after canon, don't want to call it mind rape but
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-06
Updated: 2016-02-06
Packaged: 2018-05-18 11:38:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,741
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5927028
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mellowmello/pseuds/mellowmello
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Resistance manages to detain General Hux of the First Order. Leia would never condone torture, but desperate times call for desperate measures. Rey is sent in to find out information, but she discovers something else entirely.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Crumbled Walls

**Author's Note:**

> I haven't written a fic in forever, but when the dumpster calls, you gotta answer it.
> 
> Inspired/completely based on [this](https://twitter.com/carefulren/status/693467123826434048) twitter post that happened upon my feed one day.
> 
> There could be a potential part 2 if this is received well. We'll see. ;)

The confirmation came as a crackling, warped sound over the waning connection the ship had with the base, but the message was clear enough. It was impossible not to realize the magnitude of the call.

The Resistance had captured General Hux of the First Order.

General Leia was skeptic at first. Though she had unwavering faith in her troops, one never just _happened_ to catch the highest-ranking officer of the opposing side. He should have been surrounded by Stormtroopers in the tens (not just three), or at least skilled enough to avoid capture. His arrest sent warning lights flashing in her mind. The Resistance was not nearly ready for a surprise attack from the First Order to retrieve their general.

Yet, the call was a confirmation, and Leia was desperate. Hux, the propaganda god of the First Order? They had captured _him_? He would know things. Important things. Things that, with the knowledge of their existence, could turn the tides in the war. Weapon schematics, base locations, chinks in armor, chinks in defenses…The Resistance needed him to talk. But why would he? A man like that would never speak willingly. General Leia did not condone torture, either. That was something the First Order did, something…

Something Kylo Ren _(Ben_ , her mind screamed) did. Both Poe and Rey had told her of the searing pain that Kylo inflicted upon them while searching their minds. The splitting feeling of being so quickly exposed that any attempts of recovery was futile. A seemingly interminable wave of probing and, eventually, utter collapse. No, torture was most certainly out of the question.

* * *

Hux was transported to D’Qar the very next day, being held tightly by two Resistance fighters, the other three that captured him following closely behind. Leia examined the man as they led him to the chambers which would serve as his prison. His face was on First Order-issued military articles, mostly propaganda. A handsome youth with a harsh look to his eyes. Never a wrinkle in his black uniform, never a hair misplaced atop his head. The epitome of military perfection.

That previous image of him was replaced by the one she saw now. His face was gaunt, a bruise in the works under his left eye. His uniform was dirty and ripped in places. His hair was disheveled and falling onto his forehead. There was no pride in the appearance of him, only in his eyes. Those clear eyes, that sought Leia out in the crowd, and openly sneered at her.

Leia tried not to let it bother her. But it did.

In the command center, the Resistance fighters gave their report. The five were flying through a neutral space zone when a blip on their radar called for inspection. Upon further examination, they discovered the First Order general piloting a lone shuttle with three Stormtroopers. The Stormtroopers were eliminated quickly. Hux put up a fight, of course, but was eventually subdued, and the rest was history.

Leia couldn’t shake off the suspicion. General Hux, hardly protected, in empty space that wasn’t monitored by the Resistance nor the First Order? She couldn’t blame her men - after all, they had brought her a valuable asset - but it still sent her mind to unease. She caught the eye of Poe, also in the room, and the flick of one of his brows confirmed that he was thinking the same thing.

After she dismissed the small squad for a well-deserved rest, Poe approached her immediately afterwards. “So we got Mr. General, now what? Use him as bait, lure the First Order out to him?” he murmured. crossing his arms in the process.

General Leia stared at the command table in thought. “Only when we are ready for them. No, for now it’s best to try and get information from him.”

“You mean torture?” The pilot’s eyes had widened, and she felt a pang in her chest. He despised the thought just as much as she did, if not more. Kylo - her son’s - work did a number on him.

“Of course not,” she quickly assured him, watching his shoulders drop in relief. “But there must be some way that we can get it out of him."

Poe sighed and glanced upward. “Guy like that, you won’t get nothing outta him.”

“I could try.” Both turned their head to the new voice. Rey had her arms crossed and her weight on one leg. She bit her lip in thought. “I’ve been training. I think I could enter his mind.”

The pilot immediately shook his head. “Oh, no no no, kid. You remember how that feels like, right? I wouldn’t wish that onto anyone, not even _that_ monster.”

“But if it’s the only way…” Her look switched to Leia, who had been silently dreading the girl’s proposal ever since it became a possibility. She trusted Rey, she really did, but as Poe had said, no one deserved such pain. That sort of pain was Dark, and she didn’t know if Rey knew that. Jedi mind tricks and Sith probing were two entirely separate things. and Leia didn’t know if Rey knew the difference.

Still, the girl _had_ trained with Luke for quite some time. He hadn’t returned with her, Artoo, and Chewie, but Leia wasn’t surprised. Luke might have taught her how to painlessly manipulate the mind during her training... after countless hours of boring meditation. Leia wouldn’t be surprised at that, either.

In the mind of their prisoner held countless bits of information that were vital to the Resistance gaining the upper hand. Why shouldn’t Rey try it?

_The potential pain. The fact that Kylo uses the same method to extract information. Stooping to the First Order’s level. Failure to breach his mind._ There were many reasons.

Both Poe and Rey were staring at her now, awaiting her decision. With resolve in her eyes, Leia turned to Rey. “Promise that you will try to make it as painless as possible,” she said.

Despite the topic, Rey had lit up in determination. Leia’s trust in her fueled her, made her strive to be more beneficial for the Resistance. Leia knew this; Ben had been the same way with Snoke ( _curse the name_ ). She was just grateful that Rey seeked _her_ approval and not Snoke’s. It kept a flicker of hope lit in her heart.

And if Rey could successfully find the information she was looking for from Hux, that flicker would be fanned into a flame.

* * *

“The scavenger girl, I take it?” Hux bit out. Time was lost within a windowless cell, but he knew that it was hardly over an hour since his arrival to D’Qar. The Resistance worked quickly, he’d give them that.

He expected a brute of a man to walk through the door, perhaps two. The bruise under his eye and the cut on his lip would be nothing compared to what they’d give him, all for information. They wouldn’t get anything, of course - never would he cave in just from a few bodily injuries.

Instead, he got a scrap of a girl, lean but small. She was honestly more unnerving than the brute would’ve been. He knew of her (of course he did) from her time on Starkiller Base. Her power had been unleashed there, and that power gave him an inkling of what was to come. He didn’t want it at all, but he had to be strong. She would not elicit anything from him, he assured himself.

“My name is Rey,” she said, keeping her face neutral. “And you’re General Hux, yeah?”

The man clicked his tongue and sneered. “Appealing to any humanity I may have will do nothing, _Rey_. Just get it over with.” The faster she tried to get into his mind, the better.

“Why were you in neutral space?” she questioned, which raised his ire.

“I said, _get it over with_ , scavenger scum.” Not something very polite to say to his eventual torturer, but his anger at himself was overwhelming his composure. He twisted his wrists in the tight shackles they had latched onto him. The uncomfortable sensation gave him something to focus on.

The girl looked surprised at his demand, then cooled her face back into indifference. Commendable, he supposed. She then raised her hand towards his head, and that sliver of respect retreated underneath a mindful of curses directed solely at her.

It was a full feeling in his head, as though he were a container that had two things in it when it should only have one. Which in a way, he was. The impression wasn’t agonizing, merely vexatious. Unpleasant, but not unbearable.

He was prepared for pain. He was prepared for the scorch of a red-hot hand searching every crevice of his mind, as he had experienced before. Training on Snoke’s part, it strengthened him should anyone attempt this very thing. He had mental walls now, thanks to that. No one should be able to crack them. Not even Kylo Ren could. Rey’s method of probing was nothing compared to the agony that Ren had tried on him, oh so long ago.

_I was worried over nothing._

Hux wasn’t Force sensitive, but he knew that _that_ thought had slipped out from the wall, and Rey had found the small crack whence it came. Felt her dig a little deeper, not enough to hurt, but enough to make him hurry and close it. _Do as Ren suggested,_ he thought, trying to piece together his barrier.

The mental command made him think of Ren as he fought against the scavenger. Ren’s probing was raw, completely fueled on anger and determination to get the information hidden within the mind. The look on his face as he concentrated was something Hux could look at for hours.

_Ah, shit. That got out, too._

His eyes saw Rey’s brow furrow, but his mind felt her press against the wall even further. It was getting uncomfortably congested in his head now, but the wall wouldn’t crack. It wouldn’t, because Hux had worked with both Snoke and Ren to build it. More of the latter than the former.

The training was always done in solitude, either in Ren’s personal chambers or Hux’s. Staring at one another endlessly, Ren had gradually increasing the intensity of his probing until Hux had a mind made of steel. So, in a way, he _had_ stared at Ren’s concentrated expression for hours.

The general tried to shake his thoughts from Ren. Ren, who had destroyed countless bits of machinery. Ren, who had killed countless First Order personnel in his moments of rage.

Ren, who _stopped him at the door, a hand on Hux’s bicep. “I shouldn’t need to tell you, but stay safe,” he had said._

_“It’s just a scouting mission, Ren. It will take a few days, a week at most.” Hux softened the smallest amounts under Ren’s look, and a smirk twitched his lips. “I’ll be quite alright.”_

_Ren leaned in, using his hand to pull Hux closer, until their lips met. They both sighed into the action. This was different than their usual kisses, usually so full of fervor and intensity. This one was quiet, but still sent a meaningful message that they couldn’t properly relay with mere words._

Shit, shit shit _shit_ that was _not_ supposed to slip through the hole in the wall, but it did and now Rey was looking at him like he had three heads and now the memories couldn’t _stop_ flooding his thoughts-

_The softest, most sincere grin Hux had ever seen in his life appeared on Ren’s sweat covered face. “You did it. You resisted me completely,” the Knight had said, breathless. It had taken weeks to get to this point, and now that they were there, Hux couldn’t feel more relieved._

_He also couldn’t feel more entranced at the face he was looking at now. Hux burned the memory into his brain, engraved his smile into every crevice of his being, as he would surely never see it again. If Ren tried to press into his mind now, it would completely crumble. He was engulfed in a flame of tenderness that no one had ever shown him before._

_It was a weakness, though to whom he was thinking that towards, he did not know._

That wall that Hux had built to perfection on that day with Ren was now falling because of the person that helped create it. Rey was stretching inwards at this point, grabbing onto any memory she could. He refused to cave in, refused to give her information. To combat her, he shoved more memories in her path, trying to push her out with their intensity.

_It was a moment of pure laziness, he idly thought, still lying on his bed. He should be up and on the bridge by this point. He figured, though, that they would send for him if they really needed him. That assumption gave him a brief respite from his responsibilities, enough so he could enjoy what he was viewing._

_Ren was pulling on his tunic, already having put on his pants a few moments ago. His back was to Hux, allowing the latter to marvel at the muscle that moved underneath the skin, littered with scratch marks. His handiwork, he thought with a wicked smirk. Not that Ren hadn’t done a number on him. He could_ feel _the bite marks on his arms and chest, and his body ached from their rather tumultuous endeavours the night before. A good ache, one he wouldn’t trade for the galaxy._

_“Shouldn’t you be getting ready?” Ren glanced over his shoulder to the man on the bed. Hux shrugged, running a hand through his hair. That was more than messy, as well._

_Yes, he really should be getting ready, but his eyes simply refused to stray from the man in front of him. Ren was graceless in his movements, all lanky limbs as he tried to maneuver his way into his robe. Despite putting it on a thousand times, Ren still cursed softly as his belt refused to function._

_He was a pathetic one, truly, but Hux didn't know why that was so endearing._

Hux closed his eyes at this point. That particular memory burned a hole through him, sent a shock of loneliness throughout his whole being. When would he see that again? Would he ever? Would he die in this cell or out in a public execution? Would he ever be able to tell Ren-

“You-...you _love him_.”

The words came out of her mouth, not his, and Rey hastily retreated from his mind. She left an empty space in her absence, one that was quickly filled with intense rage. White-hot shame and hatred flooded into him. It blinded him, made him seethe. How _dare_ she? How dare she make him _feel?_

Hux didn’t realize that his mental voice was being projected via his actual one. She took a step back at the fervor in his voice, the bark of a man who had said too much. Yet, he hadn’t said anything at all. There was no information exposed, only that one, _big_ thing.

The general was still hollering at her, a mix of unintelligible slurs that frightened her fiercely. Rey backed away from the livid man, who had finally reigned in his senses enough to spit out, “ _Get out!”_

Rey turned tail and slammed the door behind her.

She hurried outside, to where she could begin to _think_ in peace. Her fingers rubbed her temple in a vain attempt to try and quell the migraine forming. The world had crumbled around her and she was the only person left to remotely make sense of anything.

Rey hadn’t caught a single piece of First Order information from the general. Leia would be disappointed by this. But would she be disappointed in the knowledge that Rey _did_ gain? Would Leia hate Hux a little less knowing that he was her son’s... _lover?_ (the word didn’t sit well with Rey, not at all) Or would her resentment increase, as Hux was yet another reason for Kylo to stay in the Dark? And, stars above, how will she go about telling Leia this? _‘Just a head’s up, but our prisoner’s in love with your son!’_ Like that would go well.

Rey sighed, stood, then sighed again. Maybe she’d think of something on the way to the control room.

She doubted it.

 


End file.
